The
first Earl of Ross, Malcolm MacAedth, lived in
the 12th century and died in 1168.He
must have been a man of some importance as he was referred to as one of
the “seven
Maister Men of Scotland” who served at the crowning ceremony for the
King at
the Stone of Scone.

Malcolm MacAedth allied
his family to the Irish O'Beolan family through the marriage of his
daughter to
an O'Beolan priest. The resulting O'Beolan
Earl of Ross line lasted until 1372.The
O'Beolans lost the earldom in almost the same way in which they had
gained it,
through the ancient transference of title through a female.
The Rosses of Balnagowan in Ross-shire then succeeded
the O'Beolan Earls as chiefs of clan Ross.Over the next century they were to forfeit the Earldom to the
Crown and
there were battles in the Highlands in which the Earldom was wasted and
seized
by other clans. Attempts by John Ross of Balnagowan to recover
the Earldom
all failed.Thus clan Ross and the Earl of
Ross title became forever separated.

The Eccentric Sir Charles Lockhart-Ross

A
gossip column in the American paper The Washington Post
remarked that the Lockhart-Ross family was noted for its
eccentricities,
none more so than Sir Charles Lockhart-Ross in the years between 1790
and 1814:

“Sir
Charles was so passionately fond of
poultry that he insisted on having all the rooms at Balnagowan castle
littered
with straw so that he might enjoy the pleasure of watching the chickens
scratch
and scrape among it. In his days there was not a room in the
castle in
which one was not apt to tread upon a sitting hen or a new laid egg
hidden
among the straw.One of the very first
things that his successor was obliged to do on succeeding to the
property was
to floor and wainscot afresh every room in the castle."

A
later Sir Charles, the last of his line,
inherited the Balnagowan estate in 1883.By then it had grown large and included some of the best
farmland
and sporting acreage in Scotland.This
estate was still intact in 1942 when he died in America.He had created some complex American corporations for
the estate and even had Balnagown declared U.S. territory in order to
avoid British
taxation.For these actions, he had been
outlawed by a British court and spent many years in exile.

The Massacre of the Rosses

In
1854 it had been decided to clear the Greenyards
area in Strathcarron, Ross-shire.The
women there heard that there were men coming with writs of eviction.So they met the men, searched their pockets,
burned the writs and let the men go. The men then told the court
that they had
been attacked by a mob of disorderly people.

Two weeks later two or three men arrived claiming to have writs of
eviction. They were met by the women who refused to let them past. The
men got
nervous and one pulled a pistol. A boy in the crowd, seeing the pistol
aimed at
his mother's head, took out his own rusty pistol. The men left
peacefully but
told their superiors that they had been met by riots.

On March 31 constables from Ross and
Inverness set out to clear Greenyards. They were again met by the
women.
Accounts differ as to whether the Riot Act was actually read.However, the Procurator Taylor gave the order
to 'knock them down.' The police attacked the women, kicking them and
beating
them with ash batons. After the attack the houses were burned and
prisoners
taken back to Tain jail where they were charged with rioting and
disorderly
behavior.

Betsy Ross and the
American Flag

Betsy Griscom had been brought up in Pennsylvania in a
Quaker household.In 1773, at the age of
21, she eloped with a non-Quaker, John Ross.They were ferried
across the
Delaware river and got married in New Jersey.This marriage caused an irrevocable split with her family.

Less than two years after their nuptials, the
couple started their own upholstery business.Betsy and John then felt the impact of the war. John Ross
joined the
Pennsylvania militia.While guarding an
ammunition cache in early 1776, he was wounded in an explosion and died
soon
afterwards.Betsy was left alone to run
their upholstery business.

Betsy
would
often tell her children and grandchildren of that day in May 1776 when
three
members of a secret committee from the Continental Congress came to
call upon
her. These representatives - George Washington, Robert Morris, and
George Ross
- asked her to sew the first flag.Betsy
Ross already knew George Ross as she had married his nephew.Betsy was also acquainted with General
Washington. Not only did they both worship at Christ Church in
Philadelphia,
but Betsy's pew was next to George and Martha Washington's pew.

According
to Betsy, General Washington showed
her a rough design of the flag that included a six-pointed star.Betsy demonstrated how to cut a five-pointed
star in a single snip,Impressed,
the
committee entrusted Betsy with the making of the first flag.

In June 1777 the Continental Congress,
seeking to promote national pride and unity, adopted Betsy’s flag as
the
national flag.

Daniel and John Ross

Daniel Ross was from Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands
and had come with
his parents as a child to America in the 1770’s.They settled at Baltimore.Young
Ross was soon orphaned, however.Now a
young man, he left Baltimore with a
companion for Hawkins county in Tennessee.There they constructed a flat boat which they loaded with
merchandise
and set off down the Tennessee river to the Chickasaw country to trade
with the
Cherokee Indians.

There
he met Molly McDonald.They married in
1786 and settled near her family home to start a family.

Their son John Ross was born at Ross
Landing,
now Chattanooga, in Tennessee in 1790.There were rumors that young John had blue eyes.But all portraits have shown him as
brown-eyed.As
John grew older his father Daniel established a trading store at
Chattanooga Creek
near the foot of Lookout Mountain.

Under
the influence of his grandmother Anna, who was half Cherokee, John was
taught
the Cherokee ways and he developed a deep love for the Cherokee people,
their
traditions and the Cherokee way.He was
to serve as Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1860.His father Daniel lived to see him made
Chief, but died two years later in 1830.

Ross in the
Cocos Islands

The
Cocos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean
were uninhabited until the 1820’s when a small settlement was
established by a
Scottish adventurer named John Clunies Ross from the Shetland Isles who
traded in the area with his brother Robert. John
set about planting hundreds of coconut
palms on the islands and brought in Malay workers to harvest the nuts.

Successive
generations of Clunies-Rosses built up a business empire based on
copra, the
dried flesh of coconuts traded for its oil. Their
tenure over their exotic adopted home
was confirmed in 1886 when Queen Victoria granted them possession of
the
islands in perpetuity.

They
styled
themselves the "Kings" of the Cocos. There
were five Kings in all.

Name

King

Reign

John Clunies Ross

Ross I

1827-1854

John George Clunies Ross

Ross II

1854-1871

George Clunies-Ross

Ross III

1871-1910

Sydney Clunies-Ross

Ross
IV

1910-1944

John Cecil Clunies-Ross

Ross V

1944-1978

Meanwhile
Andrew Clunies-Ross, a brother to Ross III, established the
small settlement at Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island to mark the
families' claim to that land. He went on to explore the island
and started phosphate mining there. He withdrew from Christmas
Island in 1899 when the British Christmas Island Phosphate Company took
over.

On
Cocos Island, the Clunies-Ross
lived in a grand colonial mansion, Oceania House,
which still stands to this day. John
Clunies-Ross paid
his Malay workers in Cocos rupees, a currency he
minted himself and which could only be redeemed at the company store.

Remarkably,
their rule
lasted right up until 1978 when the last "King", also called John
Clunies-Ross, was forced to sell the islands to Australia for £2.5
million.

The
first John Clunies Ross had been born at Weisdale Voe on the Shetlands
in 1786. The story goes that he met his wife Elizabeth Dymoke as
he was running away from a press-gang. There is nothing left of
the area now but ruins, sheep, an old graveyard, and a plaque (marked
"birthplace of John Clunies Ross").

His
forebear Alexander Clunies Ross had taken refuge in the Shetlands after
the failed Jacobite revolution in 1715 (he had lost his right leg to an
English cannonball at the battle of Sheriffmuir). He had been
born Alexander Clunies. He married Marion Ross, an heiress to
lands in Ross-shire, in 1690 and subsequently adopted the Clunies Ross
name. However, he lost possession of their estates in Scotland
and he died an embittered man.